Top Tips For Heating Your Home In Spring

It’s finally spring! The days are stretching longer, sunlight is beaming down once again, and it’s time to stop relying on the heating so much. This time of year is the perfect time to prepare our heating systems for the summer when they (hopefully!) won’t be used quite as much. We’ve put together some of our top tips for heating your home in spring to help get your system ready for the long summer months of little use and also how to make small changes around your home over spring, to maintain an efficient heating system and, ultimately, to save money on your energy bills.

Can I turn off my boiler?

This isn’t a good idea if you still want to have hot water. Boilers need to be left on, however, you can tweak the settings on your boiler thermostat/control panel to only provide hot water and not heating. This way, you will still get hot water throughout the house, but your radiators won’t come on, keeping your radiators cool but ensuring you have hot water where you need it. The downside to switching your system to hot water only is that you still want toasty dry towels for your showers and baths throughout the year and if you have a central heating towel rail, you'll have no choice but to put your heating on. We would recommend that you use the warmer spring months to convert your central heating towel rail to a dual fuel one - you can do this by purchasing a dual fuel conversion kit - or treat yourself and your bathroom to a shiny new dual fuel towel rail. With 3 control types to choose from (simple on/off, programmable and even smartphone app/wifi control), you'll find the ideal rail for you and your home to work with all year round.

Reduce the temperature of your heating

Spring is the perfect time to make a few small adjustments to the way you heat your home. Doing so can help you save you money without even thinking about it. When the days begin to warm up, it’s a good idea to reduce the amount of time that your heating is on for, especially when you’re not at home. You may still want to have it on in the evenings as they can still feel chilly but consider turning the actual temperature of the heating down to ensure no heat is wasted. You can also turn down the TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) on your radiators. Take advantage of the heat streaming through from the sun during the day and have a little bit of heat from your rads in the evening - if needed, if not you can simply turn the TRV all the way down to frost protection mode (essentially, off).

Spring clean your system

As well as giving your home a good clean at this time of year by dusting neglected corners, and washing the curtains, so too does your heating system need some maintenance.  

Give your radiators a really good clean to remove a build up of dust. Read our how to guides, How To Clean White Radiators and How To Clean A Radiator With A Top Grill for all the information you could ever need.

Make use of the sunlight

South and south-west facing rooms are in for a real treat at this time of year now that the sun is shining more. The brighter mornings and longer evenings mean not only reduced lighting, but also some reduced heating as the sunlight streams in and keeps rooms warm. Keep your curtains and blinds open in the sunniest rooms to invite as much light and warmth in as possible. An added bonus is that you can also start to dry your clothes outside, if you’re blessed with the space, which will help to prevent damp build-up and will therefore chase away some of the chill. It also means you're not putting damp clothes on cold radiators and so will prevent external damage to your radiators such as corrosion and rust.

How to keep central heating working during the summer

If your boiler will be dormant for a little while, it's best to fire it up once in a while to ensure it continues to work. Just like with the battery in your car (it goes flat if you don’t run the engine for a little while regularly), if you don’t run your heating occasionally, you could find that your central heating won’t turn on when you come to use it in the autumn. This can be avoided by simply switching on your heating once a month and waiting until your radiators begin to get warm. Doing this occasionally throughout the summer will prevent the pump and diverter valve, which direct water around the heating system, from seizing up. Spring and summer are also excellent times to replace your boiler or radiators ready for the upcoming winter. Find your perfect new bathroom radiators, central heating radiators, and heating controls all from right here at UK Radiators.